Friday, January 19, 2018

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition Review (PS4)

Nearly two years after its initial launch, Street Fighter V
finally feels like a complete package with the Arcade Edition update. Available
as a free update for current SFV owners, or as a stand alone release for new
players, Street Fighter V Arcade Edition cleans up the interface, adds some
beefy single-player modes, and changes up the gameplay with some tweaks and
additions to make it even better. I hate the “This is the game they should have
released at the beginning” sentiment, but it is totally appropriate here.
Forget all the bad stuff you may have heard about Street Fighter V – Arcade
Edition fixes almost all of it. Continue reading for our full PS4 review written with new players in mind.

Game Details

To get the basic stuff out of the way – Street Fighter V
Arcade Edition is available both as a free update to existing SFV players as
well as a stand alone release for new players, but there is a key difference –
If you buy the Arcade Edition release for $40 you get access to all 28 of the
characters released so far without having to earn in-game fight money or buy
them with real money. If you are upgrading to the Arcade Edition from vanilla
Street Fighter V you don’t unlock access to the 12 extra characters,
unfortunately, and still have to unlock them. Current owners do get the new
Arcade Mode and other additions in the Arcade Edition for free, however.

Basically, if you already own SFV, the free Arcade Edition
update gives you the Arcade Mode, character balance changes, second V-Trigger
for every character, and other tweaks and additions.

If you don’t already own SFV and buy the Arcade Edition for
$40, you get Street Fighter V plus all of the additions made over the last two
years (like challenge mode, story mode, etc.), the 16 characters from the base
game, 12 additional characters from the first two DLC seasons (they’re
available from the start, you don’t have to unlock them), and the new Arcade
Mode and other additions from the AE update. If you don’t already own SFV, the
Arcade Edition is a pretty darn good deal.

Even if you buy the Arcade Edition there is still a lot of
other DLC out there to buy, such as a wide range of premium extra costumes, new
stages, and upcoming season 3 characters. Here is where things get kind of
messy, though. With the exception of premium costumes (that are only available
by spending real money), all of the other DLC in Street Fighter V can be
unlocked either by paying real money, or for free by earning in-game “Fight
Money”.

Capcom’s plan all along was that you would buy just Street
Fighter V vanilla in February 2016 and then be able to unlock any new
characters, stages, or non-premium costumes by earning in-game currency and
getting the new stuff for free. The problem, however, is that Fight Money is
relatively hard to come by unless you have the time and skill to grind away
online, so actually unlocking everything for free is pretty much a fantasy that
makes for good PR but isn’t realistic. With the Arcade Edition update Fight
Money is actually even harder to earn than it was before, too, so hoping to
unlock all of the upcoming Season 3 characters and other stuff without spending
any more real cash probably isn’t going to happen. I get it that Capcom wants
to keep making money off of Street Fighter V without forcing people to buy new
versions every couple of years like they did with every other Street Fighter
release, but the Fight Money economy is totally unbalanced to the point it
seems unfair. It’s like they’re teasing fans by saying you can earn all of the content
for free, but that will be pretty much impossible for most players.

It’s all a weird complicated system that was a big reason
why I didn’t ever play Street Fighter V until the Arcade Edition came out. The
game was extremely bare bones back at launch, and then having to jump through
hoops to get more characters was really unappealing to me. While the Fight
Money nonsense is present with Arcade Edition, at least you’re getting a
fully-featured game with tons of modes and 28 characters for your $40 investment,
which puts it in line with other current-gen fighters, so I’m okay with it.

For new features, the biggest and most important in
SFV Arcade Edition is the addition of a real, actual, proper arcade mode that
the game has been missing. Crazy to think that a fighting game didn’t have a
“Fight X# of CPU Opponents In a Row And Get a Story Scene” mode, right? Capcom
really went above and beyond when it added the Arcade Mode to SFV, however, as
you’re getting not just one arcade mode but a separate mode for each game in
the Street Fighter series, which is pretty darn cool. When you play Arcade Mode
you select which game you want to play, and then choose your character from
those that were actually available back at the time (so my favorite Juri, for
example, is only available in the SF4 and SF5 arcade modes) and then play
though a series of fights with the appropriate characters and story beats for
that game. Arcade Mode is awesome.

As for gameplay, well, the gameplay was never the problem
with Street Fighter V and it’s just as great after the tweaks and additions
made in the Arcade Edition. All of the current characters got some buffs /
nerfs / move tweaks and the whole cast now has a second V-Trigger. As someone
who never played Street Fighter V before and am coming in from Ultra SFIV, I
gotta say Street Fighter V is pretty darn fun. It feels a touch slower than
SF4, but I got used to it pretty quickly. I like how the focus system has
turned into the V system as a way to parry / counter opponents. I never used
focus very much in SF4 (I admit, I’m scrub tier through-and-through) but I use
the V system in SFV a lot since every character has unique skills and abilities
now, and also because the timing for using it isn’t nearly as tight as focus was.

I also dig SFV’s V-Trigger system where you build a meter
with V-Skills and then burn the meter as a sort of comeback mechanic like we’ve
seen in a lot of modern fighters. The cool thing about V-Trigger is that every
character’s V-Trigger is unique and gives them exclusive special abilities for
a brief time. Now that every character has two V-Triggers, matches will get
even more strategic and dynamic with what characters players choose and how
they counter opponents based on what V-Trigger they choose.

One thing I have always loved about Street Fighter is also
how all of the characters manage to feel unique and distinct and SFV AE
continues that trend. Even the “shoto” characters that share similar move sets
all manage to have unique abilities and V-system stuff. And when you throw in
the truly unique characters like Juri and R. Mika and Kolin and a bunch of
others that all feel and play totally differently from everyone else it is a
great display of how much depth and strategy Street Fighter V has to offer. It
is one of those clichéd “easy to learn, hard to master” scenarios, but that is
what makes Street Fighter V so approachable and fun for so many people of
different skill levels

All in all, Street Fighter V Arcade Edition is a fantastic
update to Street Fighter V. In particular it is a great package for new Street
Fighter V players to buy and jump in without having to deal with all of the
drama from the game’s tumultuous first two years. Buying The Arcade Edition
right now gives you 28 characters, a ton of single player modes, and the
fantastic local and online multiplayer the series is known for, all for $40.
Forget the negatives you may have heard about a thin roster and lack of content
– Street Fighter V has improved tremendously since launch and the Arcade
Edition is the perfect place to start. If you’ve been on the fence about Street
Fighter V, buy it.